Peter Mehit – Articles

Peter Mehit, author and blogger, is a serial entrepreneur with experience in small business and Fortune 100 companies. His diverse experience started in the oil industry where he ran welding crews in his early twenties. He eventually built a career in information technology, business process design and outsourcing, working for some of the largest corporations in the world. He has directly participated in six start ups along with advising hundreds more. He is the author of ‘Killer Business Plan’ and is co-founder of Custom Business Planning and Solutions, a company that creates killer business plans, sources funding and helps companies run better in less steps.

Mr. Mehit is a sought after speaker and a published columnist. He is married to his partner, Lydia and has two grown children. A drummer and songwriter, he performed in the trailblazing progressive rock band IXT ADUX as well as working in Dr. Gene Scott’s ‘Unband’ with Ron Spann.

Mr. Mehit lives in Irvine, CA

Welcome to the collection of writings by Peter Mehit, the author of this blog. Feel free to repost these articles as you’d like, but please link back to this blog or attribute them to “Peter Mehit, author of the WordPress blog, ‘Dispatches From The Front’ wbpllc.wordpress.com“

Business

Over the past year we have been surveying ‘success’ literature looking for common patterns. To our surprise, we found them hiding in plain sight. From Napoleon Hill’s epic survey of industrial titans, “Think and Grow Rich” to the ‘scientifically’ based “Psychocybernetics” to “The Master Key” which is the basis for “The Secret”, all of them are saying the same things even though they were written in different times for different audiences. To us, it breaks down to three basic principals:

Interesting Stuff

They were bullied and marginalized for most of their lives. Most left the education system in middle school because they were bored or mistreated. All of them lived with parents or relatives, reeking havoc on some of the largest organizations in the world from their bedrooms.

Pam and Kim were displaced by the banking crisis. Rather than despairing, they took their love of chocolate and developed PK’s Chocolates, which is both a brick and mortar and on line business. Having participated in their taste testing sessions this spring, we can tell you that they are at once the most unusual and delicious treats you can imagine.

If you Google the band, you’ll find we have, even still, a following in Italy where we were named one of the premier bands of the eighties on several internet lists. Even though these lists are maintained by someone in their back bedroom, I personally find it a hell of an honor anyone cares that much. And copies of the original vinyl “Brainstorm” album are worth $150/ea if you have them.

Opinion

The real point is whom this is aimed at. People who are down on their luck and having real financial problems. It’s predatory credit aimed at people with no options. This loan does not help them rebuild their financial life. It’s picking the bones of what’s left of it. It’s immoral and, I personally believe, should be criminal and the reason for my belief is not far fetched.

In my experience, and its one view point, I actually see less novelty and more repackaging. I call this ‘Brain Wave Zero’. I believe that the results will be essentially the same as McKenna’s theory, but the collapse will occur because we have run out of new ideas.

I was a tad late, and entering from the back of the room, my attention was drawn not to the presentation at the front of the room, but to the sea of little illuminated rectangles in front of most of the participants. It stunned me so much that I stood and watched as the contents of the screens changed faster than the presentation.

I have recurring insomnia. Not every night, or every week, but enough that I am always playing catch up. One recent Saturday night I was sitting in our upstairs office, cleaning out my e-mail and watching You Tube videos when two loud collisions broke the silence.

The art of creating schisms as cover has been a tool of both parties all along, but the repeated use of division has raised the noise level of public discourse to the point that no one is being heard. And now that the money is disappearing, the divisions are opening up between all of us.

The open source movement created an interesting dichotomy: A business with lots of customers that makes no money. Once open sourcers tried to make the jump to a pay model, they ran into the one of the biggest constants of humannature. People don’t want to pay forwhat they have taken for free. Like the ex-lover who marries their very next romantic partner, people will pay someone else for a lesser version of your product instead of rewarding you for giving them a free ride. People just don’t respect free.

The powers of SB1070, used for the purposes stated, are fine. It’s the infrastructure it creates that is the real problem. Think of all the abuses under the PATRIOT Act. Wiretaps and e-mail impounding that could have never taken place before it was signed into law. Extrajudicial rendition, the practice of scooping people off of streets in foriegn countries. Torture. These are all things our government is doing now.

Then Reid Hoffman spoke. Beginning as a clearly outlined speech, it quickly disintegrated into jargon filled business school talk, punctuated with moments of extreme clarity. One of these points came when he said. “Careers are dead.”

The same generation that brought you Woodstock, free love and weed are now the same people that fight universal health care, send young poor men to fight in wars that should have never been waged and never saw a buck they didn’t like. Even if it meant screwing their own kids and grandkids.